The Endless Perfect Person Checklist
And a little bit about how we can return to what really matters
Maybe it is the season, of gifting, of hosting, of decorating and celebrating, of feeling pressure to do all the things and make them magical, but I’ve been reading a lot about perfection lately. I don’t consider myself a perfectionist, in fact I often feel like I’m the opposite of that. Throw together the ingredients and trust that the recipe will taste good. Skip the measuring and cut anyway. But when it comes to life, I am acutely aware of the expectations society has for mothers, children, and all people. Even if I can’t or don’t want to live up to them, I still find it hard to escape the constant expectation to be perfect. It’s not that I’m striving to accomplish and embody everything on the endless perfect person checklist, but I live with an ever present awareness of this impossible list and the way that my home, my family, and I don’t measure up to the perfection that is supposed to exist.
Perfect is the water that we all swim in and we let it quench our thirst for validation and belonging. Even if we reject perfection or actively work against it, we still speak in ways that imply we are not meeting perfection’s exacting standards. I’m a disaster (compared to the perfect ideal), I can’t keep up (with expectations of perfection), I’m falling apart (when perfection demands we hold everything together). We might give up folding our clothes, skip sending the Christmas card, let our kids get their own snacks, or go the opposite direction and fully embrace the frowned-upon short order cooking, but it is still easy to feel like we have to live perfectly and work toward an artificial, unobtainable standard.
The funny thing about the standards of perfection (which may vary depending on who and where you are) is that sometimes we can easily meet them without changing anything. Some kids love saying hello and chatting with adults or are happy to sit quietly while you talk with your friends, others make these situations impossible. Other times things we cannot possibly control stop us from getting the reward of doing it perfectly. White supremacy culture perpetuates and upholds the need for perfection which means if your body, your gender, your skin color, who you love aren’t part of the dominant paradigm it is much harder to get to the artificial ideal of perfection. Or perhaps this idea of perfection is not part of your cultural or personal values, but the dominant culture insists that you conform and this is the safest option (and incredibly harmful to those who have to fit in). Instead of valuing and accepting all people we continue to uphold and strive for perfection (do more, be more confident, go get the things you want but do it in a way that is acceptable to society) because performing perfection gives us access to social acceptance and power.
The deep rewards of life can be elusive and hard to get to sometimes. Our world doesn’t not currently value each of us simply because we are humans alive on earth so we seek further validation by trying to be perfect. Instead of changing systems and structure in society, individuals are expected to do better and get things for themselves. Instead of getting paid leave or childcare, mothers are paid in compliments on their well behaved children, otherwise our invisible labor is rarely validated. Even if no one else sees your kid eating a plate of broccoli and lentils, you know you are checking the good mom box, likewise no one has to know that your child only eats pasta and candy, but it is hard not to feel bad about it. Constantly trying to be perfect and meet those expectations of society easily gets in the way of the things that make life really meaningful: connection, contentment, feeling like you have enough and you are enough, being in the moment and appreciating with world around you without needing to check off a box for good behavior.
I give a lot of credit to my kids for helping me to unlearn societal expectations and the idea that good parents have well behaved kids (and a very long list of other topics that I am continually trying to unlearn and relearn and which I will probably share here at some point). It can be really hard to leave the paved path and bushwhack your way to find something different that works for your family. Sometimes it is a freeing and supportive experience, but doing things so differently can also lead to a double feeling of failure. It is too hard to live up to the standard expectations and painful to feel left out and not good enough.
Of course we are not failing. We are humans doing what we can while we are constantly bombarded with unrealistic ideas, ideas that don’t leave room for the huge diversity of how we live, how our brains work, what we have capacity for, and what is important to us. I really appreciated Sara Petersen’s recent newsletter about, what she calls, “the life changing magic of mediocrity.” Most of us live far from the ideals of perfection but embracing mediocrity requires truly inhabiting this place, accepting what is.
Acceptance feels like an antidote to perfection. Maybe it begins at the surface level, being okay with a mess or a missed appointment or not enough editing. Then we need to go deeper, believing that what we are doing is not just good enough, but it is actually really good because it is what we need and doesn’t need to be measured by someone else’s standards. Embracing the life we live, and doing things the way that work for us, makes space for others to do this, too, so we can all return to what really matters, not the artificial idea of what is perfect.
Warmly,
Anna
Some of my inspiration for writing about perfection:
The Cult of Perfect a collaboration between Virginia Sole-Smith and her work on debunking diet culture and fat phobia and Sara Petersen who writes about momfluencer culture (they both write about a whole lot more and I highly recommend their work as well as the cult of perfect). The first episode about personal perfects really got me thinking.
Fran Liberatore’s thoughts on perfection and lowering expectations.
Caroline J. Sumlin on white supremacy and self worth.
Yeah to mediocrity 🙌🙌 and thanks for the mention :)
Anna, you write so beautifully, you truly have a gift of communication and know how to describe the day-to-day moments in your busy life. I can visualize what you say, and love the feeling of knowing my good friends daughter a bit more. How amazing it is to hear about how life, with all its struggles, can be different, yet true. Thank you for all your hard work!!!